


Reciprocity

by Shinaka



Category: Pocket Monsters SPECIAL | Pokemon Adventures
Genre: F/M, Forgiveness, Resentment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-19
Updated: 2017-04-19
Packaged: 2018-10-20 20:37:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10670316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shinaka/pseuds/Shinaka
Summary: Forgiveness can be a difficult thing to give and a difficult thing to take. But Lance and Yellow negotiate it in their own way. Grantedshipping if you squint.





	Reciprocity

**Author's Note:**

> Author’s Note: This was started about, let’s see, FIVE or so years ago and as such, no HGSS events are mentioned. But I'm so, so glad to finally get this finished and move on with my life.

_Oh._

 

“You’re looking at me like you’ve seen a ghost.” A quirk of a thin eyebrow. “Though I guess a few years off the radar would do that.”

 

Two years and a Megavolt later and yet Lance leans against a willow tree, looking none the worse for wear, and is talking to her like she hasn’t brought all his plans for a Pokemon utopia to a screeching halt on top of a volcano.

 

She wants to answer in some way and she has her mouth open, but somehow the words – whatever they’re supposed to be – are stuck behind her tongue. There’s no Chuchu here to act as a buffer – she’s off with Pika, Red, and Professor Oak now – and her other Pokemon are in their Pokeballs. Her hand almost reaches for Ratty before she realizes that might send the wrong sign. She settles for grasping air.

 

He’s smirking at her, corners pointed like the flap of his jacket – still red and jarring – but then he’s not.

 

“Is it really so wrong for me to visit my home?” Lance asks quietly.

 

She’s aware of her mouth twitching and the puff of her breath past her lips, and there’s a long silence in which she’s sure Lance is coming to the conclusion that she has become dumb and mute since Cerise Island. It’s only when he finally turns around as if to walk away that Yellow finds her voice and says – a little too loud, she notes with a grimace – “No, it’s not wrong!”

 

A whip of his cape and Lance’s back to looking at her.

 

“I mean, you _have_ done a lot of bad things but you were doing it for the sake of Pokemon and in the end, nobody got hurt that badly, though there _was_ a lot of damage to Kanto,” _and it took a full year for Kanto to be rebuilt_ but she decides to keep that to herself. 

 

“But then afterwards you disappeared and didn’t really do anything bad, or not that I know of.” She flushes at how much she’s rambling now. “Well, you were also helping out Silver, which I’m thankful for – ”

 

“So he told you about me.”

 

She hesitates – maybe she said _too_ much – but his tone isn’t angry. He’s not happy either but as Yellow thinks about it some more, maybe it’s like hearing that a friend talked behind your back at all. Not that Lance and Silver are friends from the way Silver talks about him, and she’s not about to tell Lance some of the things Silver said about the supposed _usefulness_ of some of his missions.

 

But she figures answering the question beneath those words can’t hurt.

 

“H-he did,” she starts. “But he only did so because he felt we should know about anything that could help us against the Masked Man.”

 

The surprise she still remembers clear as day. Red’s “Cool, he’s being helpful.” Blue’s “But didn’t he try to kill Yellow and _everybody else_ a while ago?” Green’s “This is interesting.” And her own wide-eyed gape at Silver’s face.

 

More confidently, she adds, “I really am grateful for all the help you gave us through Silver.” But she trails off at the end of Silver’s name as if there’s more to come. 

 

_Should there be more_ , she wonders. Lance has an eyebrow raised, expecting her to come out with it already, but staying quiet. _How patient_ , she thinks. He’s a long, long way from that time up until Cerise Island where all the words and Pokemon battles – except one – couldn’t make a difference.

 

Ah, she knows how she wants to continue now.

 

“I mean it.” Her fingers entwine themselves at her front, and she tilts her head to meet Lance’s eyes straight on. “Thank you for that, Lance.”

 

She thinks she spots confusion along with a good helping of skepticism and maybe even amusement in his eyes. Which is understandable, when she considers that one of the last things she had said – rather, screamed – at him two years ago was, “Lance, _you’re just insane!_ ”

 

But it’s not two years ago. Since then, Lance has done nothing bad. In fact, he’s actually done good for both people and Pokemon, even if he’s been hiding behind Silver all this time, and even if her first reaction to him turning a new leaf had been overwhelming shock.

 

She can’t read people as well as Pokemon and she’s not even sure if her powers can affect a fellow Viridian. But when she looks at Lance, she thinks she can see some of the weight of that awful, destructive ambition lifted from his shoulders. Even if he does continue to put up walls between him and everybody else, there’s still an openness there just beneath the surface that Yellow knows wasn’t there a few years ago.

 

Yellow wants to heal. She also wants to forgive.

 

“…You’re an interesting one,” she almost misses him saying. “But still too soft.”

 

He takes a step closer. Yellow stays where she is.

 

Without prompting, he starts talking again. “I could have killed you then. I wanted to kill you then. You were in the way and not only that,” and his expression dissolves into something Yellow can’t decipher but she feels a prickling underneath her skin anyway. 

 

He spits out, “You dared to tell me how to care for my own pokemon, the very pokemon I raised since I was a child. Did you know that I saved each of them from death when no one else around me would? Did you know that I was the only one who cared?”

 

She doesn’t move her gaze from his face. It’s not that she’s being brave. His breathing’s getting raspy, he keeps stepping closer to her while he’s talking, and the almost-friendly mood from the beginning of this whole exchange is now washed over with acid. She’s staring at his face while her hands clasp each other to keep the oncoming shaking at bay. Maybe she saw wrong, maybe she shouldn’t have said anything, maybe she broke a friendship before it even became one, but it’s like she has to keep still like Lance is a Ursaring, ready to charge at a broken stare or a flinch.

 

“And when I got older, humans seemed only more _despicable_ ,” he all but shouts at her, “Always making their pokemon perform their tedious, menial chores or fight their battles. The Pokemon, of course, did their duties with grace but what thanks do they get? _More chores and more battles._ ”

 

Lance pauses. Among the sounds of pokemon burrowing into the ground, bouncing from treetop to treetop, or rustling through the bushes, her breathing seems overly loud and even offensive. 

 

Then he says, “And when they die, they’re merely replaced with other pokemon to do the same work. Thus the cycle goes on.”

 

He’s closer than ever – she can even lift a hand, run it along that red jacket and possibly get cut by the edges, or reach out to rest a palm on his heart, maybe even feel its life-rhythm of love, anger, righteousness, and hate.

 

“You know this, don’t you?” She’s in the middle of deciding to answer when he takes that choice away. “No, why am I even asking? Of course you do. You may only be a little girl,” and Yellow can’t take back the gasp that falls out of her mouth. “And also naïve to think that I can’t pick that up. You can fool the children you travel with but not me,” Lance says.

 

She can’t help but pull down tightly on her hat anyway.

 

He stops edging closer. “But even then, you’ll choose to let other humans live,” he says quietly.

 

It’s not a question yet it is.

 

She can interject now but she feels there’s more still, and she wants him to fully express himself. Also, within the heart of the Forest, time and sensation flow differently; Lance can take all the time he wants and Yellow will still be waiting patiently. Even if he wants to hurt her, the Forest has her wrapped in a cocoon, safe and soothing.

 

When his arm reaches out for her then, she’s quick to seize upon the whispers of the Forest. But before she can hurl their power into pushing Lance off from her, she feels a hand upon her hat. There’s a jerky awkwardness in the motion that Yellow would never peg Lance for, and his hand pushes her hat off her head a little, but it’s ultimately not there to harm.

 

“But while my plans would have killed all humans, they would have also hurt Pokemon much more.” For the first time since he has started speaking in length, he turns away from her face.

 

He grits his teeth. “They may still be glorified slaves under this system. But my ‘utopia’ would have thrown their lives into such chaos that it wouldn’t have mattered if they were free and me and Lugia there to help them.” 

 

“Humans and Pokemon really… can’t live without each other.” She catches what might be shame on what little she can see of Lance’s face without moving. “For me to force something otherwise was to be selfish and cowardly.” 

 

“It took me a while to realize this,” and the rest spills out in an almost hushed voice, “But killing doesn’t solve anything. It’s easy but it won’t make humans change to appreciate their Pokemon and it won’t make Pokemon any less reliant on humans for companionship.”

 

Between the weight of revelations and the hand on her head, Yellow is caught in the middle. But she is content with this. Despite their differing paths, she now knows beyond a doubt that their goal is one and the same. Underneath his arm, she lets herself smile. 

 

For the first time since Lance began speaking at length, Yellow speaks up. “Only through changing people’s attitudes toward Pokemon will Pokemon finally be treated the way they deserve.”

 

He still won't face her but she does see the slow, almost imperceptible nod.

 

Yellow states, rather than asks, “That’s why you’ve been working behind the scenes with Silver.”

 

“Yes,” Lance says. “And also to atone.”

 

He turns to face her again, hand still on her head. This time Lance stares directly into her eyes.

 

“This… is difficult for me to say but I will try.” _Is he nervous_ , the girl wonders. It is a odd look on the Dragon-type trainer, even stranger than the shame she thinks she had glimpsed before. Lance has always been a man that exuded confidence, even while confessing a significant reversal in his convictions and beliefs.

 

He continues, “But the true reason I came here today is to… apologize.” 

 

When Yellow does not respond – for what does one say to someone who is clearly at their most vulnerable and you are the one responsible for it – the man groans before saying more loudly, “To you.

 

“I could not accept back at Cerise Island that there was another way. Because of that, I...” Lance trails off. 

 

The young girl doesn’t know if she can hold his stare anymore. What he intends to say next is obviously humbling and humiliating to him and even though she knows that she deserves this apology, she wants to squirm under his hand and duck away for the both of them.

 

But she forces herself to stay. Lance did not have to change his mind about humanity. He did not have to reflect on his actions, to start a painful journey of revising his view of right and wrong. He did not have to help her and her fellow trainers with the Masked Man. He especially did not have to return to the Forest, to speak to someone that could have easily silenced him and for good reason. But he has decided to walk this difficult path nonetheless.

 

Lance finally finishes his sentence. “Almost killed you. Someone that only cared for pokemon in the end,” he murmurs, barely audible above the sounds of the Forest, the cries of bug and grass Pokemon mingling with the sound of a rushing nearby stream.

 

He finally breaks eye contact with Yellow then, shifting his eyes to look at the ground beneath them.

 

The apology must have taken a lot of energy out of him because he does not notice what the healer is doing until her hands cover the hand that is on top of her head.

 

With a start, Lance tries to take his hand back but Yellow simply holds his hand put, with some help from the powers governing the Forest.

 

“Thank you,” she says.

 

The man can and has powers of his own, Forest-gifted as he is, too. But he does not resist Yellow this time, unlike two years ago. He lets her calloused hands stay for a while because she has forgiven him and he is starting to forgive himself.

 

Lance is finally home.


End file.
